Last night my family and I attended a dars dinner at a family friends’ home. It took place in their basement and the crowd consisted of about 100 people. The renowned Muslim scholar/speaker Iman Siraj Wahaj (of Brooklyn, NY) was the guest speaker present. For those who haven’t heard of him, he is an African-American (probably in his early 50s at the moment) who converted to Islam at age 19 and nowadays serves as Imam of a masjid in Brooklyn and travels the country lecturing on Islam in contemporary times…an extremely well-versed and well-spoken individual based on what I saw last night. He apparently had gone on to NYU to study and, as well, holds a Master’s degree on his proverbial resume. Last night he seemed to be able to take any routine situation of life and eloquently apply it directly to Islam and vice versa. It was nice to hear him because he made the audience laugh with his down-to-earth quality and humaness (bringing baseball, soccer, movie stars, political figures into the picture), making us laugh with some humorous moments, and enlightening how Islam permeates virtually every aspect of our daily lives.
I was utterly glued to his dars, it was that beautiful, and although I am just a moderate Muslim, I appreciated his words alot because I knew that his train of thought and logic made much common sense. At one point he said how each baby born is born a Muslim and each individual is a reflection of God in some way whether the person is black, white, believer, non-believer, etc. Each person has the capacity within him to love or hate, do justice or do wrong, etc. We all want the same things for our children, for our parents, for our respective communities no matter what our backgrounds are. Islam is tolerant and you share it with an open heart and an open mind; it is not forced onto others. Again, such beautiful words and thoughts of our beautiful religion so I ended up getting teary eyed, this is how moved I was from the lecture.
Strictly speeking he was not najayaz to you since polygamy is allowed in islam, but thats a whole new topic. Seems there were other more serious problems with him.
I think you shouldnt get involved, youve already had problems with him and if anything you should be avoiding him. Its not your responsibility to guide him, its his own, if anyone can help him it should be his close family and friends.
Islamically there are strict guidelines for relationships between men and women, and since you have history with him, wouldnt it make things worse?, personally I think there is no benefit to be gained by making contact. Just forget about this person completely and just concentrate on bettering yourself. :flower2:
M, thanks for providing the link. Glad you're familiar with the scholar. I will listen to these lecture topics of Imam Siraj Wahaj one at a time as time permits because they sound quite interesting.
Re: Re: Re: great religious scholars and humbling life experiences
The literal meaning of polygamy is indeed gender neutral. However, the accepted meaning commonly used is that it is ‘Polygamy’ when a man has multiple wives. ‘Polyandry’ is when a woman has multiple husbands.
Sweetpie, There are some people 'Jink kaye diloun per Allah s.w.t Mohar laga daitaye hein'. They do not repent to Allah s.w.t paak zaat, no matter how hard you try.
My advise to you would be, keep a distance with that guy, But talk to him over the phone ( at the most) if you really want to try and bring out the real person in him. I respect your efforts and thoughts even after that guy did so bad to you. Forgiveness is very hard to find especially these days. And not to mention in girls/women when it comes to this. A typical reaction of a typical girl would be "I am not going to forgive that Bast....." Some will actually take the extra step and would hunt down the guy. But I got to give you props for having such intentions. Good luck!
-Salman
so I ended up getting teary eyed, this is how moved I was from the lecture.
